Launches
ON RECORD22MISSIONS
21 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1963, the most recent 2024.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1990 · 36 years ago today
Pale Blue Dot
Voyager 1 turned its camera back toward the inner system and photographed Earth from beyond Neptune's orbit.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
February 14 in spaceflight
22 orbital launches flew on February 14, the earliest of them in 1963, and 21 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 5 spaceflight and astronomy events on February 14. Below are the pictures NASA published on February 14 in 4 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD5ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1855 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED4IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for February 14, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on February 14
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
2024
NASA Science
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
NASA · public domain
2023
NASA Science
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
NASA · public domain
2022
NASA Science
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
NASA · public domain
2021
NASA Science
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
NASA · public domain
What happened on February 14
1855
Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
Texas ↗1961
Lawrencium, the radioactive synthetic element with atomic number 103, was first synthesized at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
Lawrencium ↗1990
The NASA space probe Voyager 1 took Pale Blue Dot (detail pictured), a photograph of Earth from a record distance of 40.5 astronomical units (6.06 billion km; 3.76 billion mi).
NASA ↗1990
The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later becomes famous as Pale Blue Dot.
Voyager 1 ↗2000
The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
NEAR Shoemaker ↗
Every launch on February 14
22 launches
ONLINE
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | USSF-124SpXSUCCESS
- 2022PSLV-XL | EOS-4 (RISAT-1A)ISROSUCCESS
- 2017Ariane 5 ECA | SKY Brasil-1 (Intelsat-32e) & Telkom-3SASASUCCESS
- 2014Proton-M/Briz-M | Türksat-4AILSSUCCESS
- 2012Proton-M Briz-M | SES-4ILSSUCCESS
- 2004Titan 402B IUS | DSP 22USAFSUCCESS
- 1998Delta 7420-10C | Globalstar 1 to 4USAFSUCCESS
- 1997Tsiklon-3 | Strela-3 116 to 118 & Gonets 4 to 6VKSSUCCESS
- 1996Long March 3B | INTELSAT 708CASCFAILURE
- 1991Proton | US-KMO 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1990Delta 6920-8 | LACE & RMEUSAFSUCCESS
- 1989Delta 6925 | GPS-2 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1989Kosmos-3M | Duga-K 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1989Molniya-M | US-K 60 (Kosmos 2001)CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Zenit-2 | GVM Tselina-2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Mu-3S | OhzoraISASSUCCESS
- 1980Delta 3910 | Solar Maximum MissionUSAFSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 12CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Proton | Luna-20CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Kosmos 11K63 | DS-U2-I 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Trailblazer 2 | Trailblazer PelletNASASUCCESS
- 1963Thor Delta B | Syncom 1USAFSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
SPONSORED
General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.
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LISTING
Cosmos — Carl Sagan
Still the best single argument for why any of this matters, and it leaves the arithmetic in. For a reader who wants the science, not just the awe.
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LISTING
Pale Blue Dot — Carl Sagan
The case for leaving Earth, written by someone unsentimental about how hard that is. Suits readers who want the argument rather than the poster.
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LISTING
Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir
Hard-SF problem solving in The Martian's key — for anyone who liked the engineering more than the peril. The only novel on this list.
BROWSE opens an Amazon search, not a specific recommendation.
LINKS AMAZON.COM
Sources and licences
Event text and thumbnails come from Wikipedia and are used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Images are drawn only from Wikimedia Commons, which does not accept non-free content — each thumbnail links to its file page, where its licence and author are recorded.
Launch records are from The Space Devs’ Launch Library 2. Pictures are NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day; NASA imagery is generally not subject to copyright, but individual APOD entries are frequently the property of the photographer, and each caption says which applies.